Featured Releases

Buena Vista Social Club’s Lost and Found is a collection of previously unreleased tracks from the Buena Vista all-star cast of Ibrahim Ferrer, Rubén González, Cachaíto López, Guajiro Mirabal, Eliades Ochoa, Omara Portuondo, and Compay Segundo—some recorded during the original album’s sessions in Havana, others from the years that followed. The studio tracks were recorded at the 1996 Egrem studio sessions in Havana and during a period of rich and prolific creativity stretching into the early 2000s. Lost and Found also features live recordings from the world tours of Buena Vista’s legendary veterans. Pre-orders include an instant download of the album track "Macusa."

Buena Vista Social Club’s Lost and Found is a collection of previously unreleased tracks from the Buena Vista all-star cast of Ibrahim Ferrer, Rubén González, Cachaíto López, Guajiro Mirabal, Eliades Ochoa, Omara Portuondo, and Compay Segundo—some recorded during the original album’s sessions in Havana, others from the years that followed. The studio tracks were recorded at the 1996 Egrem studio sessions in Havana and during a period of rich and prolific creativity stretching into the early 2000s. Lost and Found also features live recordings from the world tours of Buena Vista’s legendary veterans. Pre-orders include an instant download of the album track "Macusa."

Punch Brothers join forces with producer T Bone Burnett for The Phosphorescent Blues. On the album, the band examines modern life, or, as Chris Thile puts it, asks: "How do we cultivate beautiful, three-dimensional experiences with our fellow man in this day and age?” The CBC calls it "triumphant." The Herald Scotland says it's "a quite masterly collection from a quintet of virtuosi [that] deserves to be filed next to the best work of The Beach Boys, Big Star and Richard Thompson. It's that good." The two-LP, 140-gram vinyl release includes four additional tracks not available elsewhere.

Rhiannon Giddens—singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and founding member of Carolina Chocolate Drops—makes her solo recording debut with Tomorrow Is My Turn. The album, produced by T Bone Burnett, features a broad range of songs from genres as diverse as gospel, jazz, blues, and country, including works made famous by Dolly Parton, Patsy Cline, Odetta, and Nina Simone. The album "is a showcase for Ms. Giddens’s glorious voice," says the New York Times. "For all her technical control, her voice is a perpetually soulful marvel." "Gorgeous," exclaims the Daily Telegraph. "An exceptional record."

This three-LP collection captures a one-night-only concert held at New York City’s Town Hall in 2013 to celebrate the music of the Coen brothers film Inside Llewyn Davis, featuring live performances by icons and rising stars of folk and Americana. They sang "in pitch perfect tone that left an oft-awestruck audience silently stunned," says the Los Angeles Times, "then vocally thrilled." The concert, the resulting Showtime documentary, and this live album were produced by Joel and Ethan Coen and T Bone Burnett.

Jonny Greenwood’s soundtrack to Paul Thomas Anderson’s film Inherent Vice, an adaptation of the Thomas Pynchon novel, includes nine works by Greenwood; an unreleased Radiohead tune performed with members of Supergrass; and recordings from the movie’s era, the tail end of the psychedelic ’60s. Performers on this "excellent playlist" (New York Times) include The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Neil Young, Can, and The Marketts, among others. Inherent Vice stars Oscar nominees Joaquin Phoenix, Josh Brolin, and Owen Wilson.

For Black Friday Record Store Day 2014, Conor Oberst releases a special limited-edition 7" with two exclusive tracks recorded during the sessions for his Nonesuch Records debut album, Upside Down Mountain, that are unavailable anywhere else: "Standing on the Outside Looking In" and "Sugar Street." The 7” was cut by Jason Ward at Chicago Mastering Service and pressed at Record Industry in the Netherlands.

The recordings made by Abelardo Barroso with Orquesta Sensación in Havana during the 1950s represent one of the pinnacles of the golden age of Cuban music. On Cha Cha Cha, World Circuit, the label behind Buena Vista Social Club, releases a re-mastered selection of 14 of their most irresistible recordings from one of Cuba's all-time great singers. The Guardian gives Cha Cha Cha four stars, calling it both "another reminder of Cuba’s extraordinary musical history" and "almost uncannily contemporary."

In conjunction with Wilco's 20th anniversary comes Alpha Mike Foxtrot, a four-LP box set of rare studio and live recordings collected from the band’s extensive audio archives, plus 36 pages of liner notes, including track-by-track recollections from Jeff Tweedy, notes by band members Nels Cline and John Stirratt, and dozens of archival and never-before-seen photos chronicling all phases of the band’s career. The vinyl is no longer available from the Nonesuch Store; head to the Wilco Store while supplies last.

Conor Oberst's Upside Down Mountain features many of his friends, including producer Jonathan Wilson, engineer Andy LeMaster, bassist Macey Taylor, multi-instrumentalist Blake Mills, and the Swedish folk-rock vocal duo First Aid Kit. Rolling Stone raves: "A sumptuous immersion in '70s California folk pop, it is the most immediately charming album he has ever made." The New York Times says: "All of Mr. Oberst’s gifts align on Upside Down Mountain."

Toumani Diabaté, widely recognized as the greatest living kora player, and his eldest son Sidiki, release the recording Toumani & Sidiki on World Circuit. The album is a set of unaccompanied kora duets, featuring both obscure, almost forgotten kora pieces and a new look at some Mandé classics from Mali. The Evening Standard calls it "a rare treat, one of the albums of the year." The Guardian calls it "the finest Toumani collaboration since his classic work with Ali Farka Touré ... gently exquisite."